Sylvie Guillaume (S&D, French) is steering the reform of the ‘Schengen Borders Code’ in the European Parliament, which was approved in June by the Council of the European Union (see EUROPE 12969/2). Although her draft report has not yet been finalised, she told EUROPE about the direction she would like to see this reform take and already highlights at this stage that the instrumentalisation of migration will have no place in it. (Interview by Solenn Paulic)
Agence Europe - How is the work progressing and when will you present your draft report?
Sylvie Guillaume - The French Presidency of the Council of the EU did not seem to me to be the right time to start this work, I did not want a national confrontation.
Work has since begun, but organisational issues have arisen that have slowed the process, particularly with changes in the negotiating team. A number of Swedish MEPs have also joined the team and with the new government coalition being formed in Sweden, the question of the position of these MEPs on the Schengen issue will be important.
This is also a very difficult issue, as it has a lot to do with identity. Changes are being made to the symbolic subject of free movement. And in this reform proposed by the Commission, there is the creation of a direct link between the Schengen area and migration. The symbolic nature of free movement is affected by this link with migration and the introduction of the dimension of the instrumentalisation of migration.
The introduction of the new procedure for returning irregular migrants within Schengen to a neighbouring Member State is also a complex matter.
With all these starting points, I find it difficult to envisage my report being voted on during the Czech Presidency of the EU Council. And there is also the unknown of the Swedish Presidency and a new coalition in power that could be very tough on the Schengen matter.
What messages will you be putting across first?
I do not yet know whether I will have sufficient political support, but my aim is to remove the instrumentalisation of migration from the Schengen Borders Code where it does not belong. There is a specific regulation on this issue of instrumentalisation.
The Council also added a problematic element to the definition of instrumentalisation, which includes non-state actors, not only third countries. One might therefore ask whether associations (providing help to migrants, editor’s note) will, for example, fall within the phenomenon of instrumentalisation.
That is why, even if it will be complicated, I will try to remove this concept from the text.
As for the ‘instrumentalisation’ regulation itself, it is a very opportunistic text, prepared in perfectly identified circumstances (Belarus’ actions at the end of 2021, editor’s note - see EUROPE 12829/8). But it is not targeting the right objectives, as it will be targeting the victims of instrumentalisation, potentially the associations, and not the perpetrators of the instrumentalisation themselves.
This text does not solve anything either.
You also seem to have problems with internal procedures for returning migrants between neighbouring Member States...
They are still very vague.
The text speaks of joint police patrols. This is implementing internal border controls without explicitly saying as much and it does not fall under the Schengen agreement.
I wonder how this system of joint police patrols can be formalised between two Member States: will a Member State be able to refuse this patrol? How will the decision to launch these patrols be communicated? It does not seem to me to be very harmonised and it seems to give a lot of leeway to the Member States.
I will also be very vigilant about the proportionality check that the Commission has introduced to assess the internal border control measures re-introduced by Member States. For France, these controls have already been renewed for seven years.
This aspect of proportionality checks carried out by the Commission after 12 months seems to me to be a good thing, but there will need to be content in the opinion that is given.
What I will be looking for first and foremost are truly harmonised solutions and not an ‘à la carte’ response. The rules governing the Schengen area must be as uniform as possible and Member States must not be able to reintroduce controls to serve their own interests and almost without end, where they are able to provide insufficiently argued explanations.
What is your overall view of the Schengen reform? Is it ultimately up to the task?
The general political context is still at play, with the shift to the right and the extreme right and the overdramatisation of debates.
And the Commission responds with immediate emergency measures, which lose sight somewhat of the general interest. In my opinion, the Commission has missed the mark with this reform, whereas as guardian of the Treaties, it should take a step back and focus on harmonising the law.
It could also be accused of rushing through the Asylum and Migration Pact, testing concepts in different texts, which is not a very fair working technique.
And the solution is not the roadmap signed between the European Parliament and the different EU Council presidencies (see EUROPE 13016/2), because with such complicated starting proposals, you risk ending up with incomprehensible texts.
Again, with the Pact, I feel that the Commission has missed the mark. There is nothing on legal channels of migration, for example, and only the restrictive aspects are focused on.